logo
episode-header-image
Sep 15
39m 50s

The Haitian Revolution | Revolution Fest...

Revolutionary Communist Party
About this episode

THERE WERE TECHNICAL ISSUES WITH THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST. WE APOLOGISE FOR THE MISSED CONTENT


The Haitian Revolution was the first successful slave revolt in history and remains one of the most inspiring chapters in the struggle against oppression. Speaking at Revolution Festival 2024, Keelan Kellegher explains how enslaved Africans in Haiti, under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, rose up against French colonialism and struck a blow for freedom that shook the capitalist world. 

Using the Marxist method, this talk places the Haitian Revolution in its global context: a revolutionary struggle against slavery, racism, and exploitation that offers vital lessons for communists today.

While the bourgeois historians distort or ignore this heroic revolution, Marxists draw the real lessons: the importance of decisive leadership and class struggle. For those interested in anti-colonial struggles, Black liberation, and the fight against capitalism, Keelan’s talk shows why the Haitian Revolution is not just history, but a living guide for revolutionaries battling oppression in the modern world. 

🔗 ⁠Head to our website for more analysis on the topic⁠

✊ ⁠Join the Revolutionary Communist Party⁠

📰 ⁠Subscribe to The Communist and the In Defence of Marxism magazine⁠

💸 ⁠Donate to the RCP⁠

🌐 ⁠Read the latest news and analysis from the RCI

Up next
Oct 6
Can AI have consciousness? │Revolution Festival 2024
Is artificial intelligence truly conscious—or is it just hype? At Revolution Festival 2024, Daniel Morley applies the Marxist method to cut through the illusions surrounding AI. While tech billionaires claim AI is a revolution on par with human thought, Marxism shows that conscio ... Show More
47m 21s
Sep 29
Reason in revolt | Summer camp '25
Marxism is not just a political programme—it is a scientific world outlook. At the RCP Summer Camp, Khaled Malachi explains the role of Marxist philosophy and why dialectical materialism is the most advanced method for understanding reality. From physics to biology, science confi ... Show More
40m 21s
Sep 21
The Rise and Fall of the Fourth International │RCI World Congress
The rise and fall of the Fourth International is one of the most important lessons for communists today. At the World Congress of the Revolutionary Communist International, Rob Sewell explains how the degeneration of the leadership of the Fourth International left the working cla ... Show More
1h 10m
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2024
The Voodoo Revolution
The creation of Haiti was the culmination of a slave revolt that began on a stormy night in the dense woods of Bois Caïman in Saint-Domingue, on 21st September, 1791, when a Voodoo ceremony led by the Jamaican-born priest Dutty Boukman called upon the enslaved Africans to reject ... Show More
12m 28s
Jul 2021
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, "Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in wa ... Show More
1h 12m
Nov 2024
The Origins of the Revolutionary Tradition in America (feat. Gerald Horne)
We are joined by Dr. Gerald Horne for a discussion on the meaning of the American Revolution and his extensive scholarship on re-assessing 1776 as a "counterrevoluton." At the heart of this discussion is the political and practical question for socialist politics in our time, nam ... Show More
1h 11m
Mar 2025
545. The French Revolution: The First Feminist (Part 2)
In the summer and Autumn of 1792 - with the Prussians bearing down on Paris, the streets thronged with the stirring swell of the Marseillaise, but also the rotting bodies of those brutally killed during the September Massacres - the French Revolution bore a new symbol of optimism ... Show More
1h 1m
Dec 2024
The German Revolution
Alyson and Breht finally dive into the German Revolution of 1918! Together they discuss this rather ambigious revolution, give a detailed overview of events, and reflect on what lessons we can learn from it. From the toppling of the Kaiser, to the brutal fight between social demo ... Show More
1h 43m
Mar 2025
546. The French Revolution: The Monarchy Falls (Part 3)
“From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world’s history, and you can all say you were present at its birth!” By September 1792, the Prussians, under the leadership of the formidable Duke of Brunswick, were closing in on revolutionary Paris. There, the ... Show More
1h 2m
Jun 2025
[BEST OF] The Chinese Revolution: Chairman Mao, Cultural Revolution, & Communist China
ORIGINALLY RELEASED Jun 4, 2018 In this episode, Breht is joined by Yueran Zhang, a PhD candidate in Sociology at Harvard University, to discuss the Chinese Revolution and the legacy of Mao Zedong. Together, they explore the historical context of China's revolutionary transformat ... Show More
1h 2m
Aug 23
Lucia Sorbera, "Biography of a Revolution: The Feminist Roots of Human Rights in Egypt" (U of California Press, 2025)
It is not Egypt's 2011 revolution that opened a space for women's and feminist activism, but—as Biography of a Revolution: The Feminist Roots of Human Rights in Egypt (U of California Press, 2025) shows—the long history of women's activism that created the intellectual and politi ... Show More
43m 18s
Mar 2025
544. The French Revolution: The September Massacres (Part 1)
‘Still more traitors, still more treason…" It is 1792 and France has been at war since April; it is not going well. In Paris, the Tuileries Palace has been stormed, and the royal family imprisoned. Meanwhile, tensions are rising between the main political factions of the Revoluti ... Show More
1h 2m